The SWAT Team Gently Reminds a Girl to Secure Her Wi-Fi Network By Raiding Her House With Flashbangs

Here's a reminder that you should never, ever, ever have a Wi-Fi network without a password on it. Police in Indiana called up the SWAT team to raid an 18-year-old girl's house by smashing her front window and throwing two flashbangs inside because of her open Wi-Fi network. What the hell?

It all started because some people who signed on to the innocent girl's open Wi-Fi network were making specific threats about the police. The police told Eyewitness News that the threats included awfulness like:

Them showing up at officers' houses and doing bodily harm. Some of them talked about killing our wives and our children.

And serious, tasteless threats like:

Cops beware! I'm proud of my country but I hate police of any kind. I have explosives :) made in America. Evansville will feel my pain.

If it seems a little excessive to flashbang and raid a house — I mean, if you watch the video you can see the SWAT team was out in complete force — just because of threats over the Internet. And get this: the poor girl's house that the SWAT team raided had its front door open. THE DOOR WAS OPEN. Flashbanging the house was completely unnecessary and seemed more like a bully tactic than regular protocol.

The police eventually realised their mistake and located the Internet gangster in a neighbouring house. He had logged onto the innocent girl's Wi-Fi network because it didn't require a password. Ars Technica says the person the police were really looking for is "a teenager who admits to the paper that he has a "smart mouth," dislikes the cops, and owns a smartphone". Sounds like every other teenager to me.

Police follies and irresponsible SWAT team behaviour aside, people, please lock up your home Wi-Fi networks by putting a password on them. You never want to be flash banged. Watch the SWAT team raid here [Tristate Homepage via Ars Technica]